Pan Am Settles a Bias Suit Dating From the Gulf War

Published: January 22, 1993

Pan American World Airways agreed yesterday to pay an Iranian-born American passenger and other plaintiffs $110,000 to settle a lawsuit accusing the airline of detaining the man during the Persian Gulf war because of his Middle Eastern ancestry, the American Civil Liberties Union said.

The lawsuit, filed in Federal District Court in Manhattan, had charged that the passenger, Mohammad Ghonoudian, was forcibly removed from a Pan Am plane on Feb. 1, 1991, and interrogated for three hours by the airline's security agents.

The settlement will be shared by Mr. Ghonoudian, the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and the American Civil Liberties Union, said Lucas Guttentag, director of the A.C.L.U.'s Immigrants' Rights Project.